James McMurtry performed at Utah’s finest venue, The State Room on February 24th, 2010. The show had been SOLD OUT for weeks and desperate McMurtry fans working Craig’s List hard for any available tickets. The stoic McMurty dazzled his adoring Utah fans with his guitar prowess, one of a kind voice  and stellar songwriting. James often dwells on the darker side of life with poignant, pertinent and powerful ballads than can bring tears to eyes one minute and a healthy rage against the machine the next .

McMurty also holds no punches when it comes to taking it to the mindless like GW Bush and D Cheney. I spoke with James backstage and this soft spoken Texan was as eloquent off stage as he is on and related some wonderful anicdotes from his past shows in and when we talked about Colorado venues he remembered a show in Boulder when the show had to go on even when one of the band members was puking his guts out.

On this night we even got to see him crack a smile when an intense fan removed her bra and threw it at James and it landed perfectly on the neck of his guitar, he left it there for the duration of the song bring a roar from the exuberant crowd.

I’ve been a fan for years and will never forget the first time I heard his classic song “We Can’t Make It Hear Anymore” with the classic lyrics “

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I’m in
Should I hate ‘em for having our jobs today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They’ve never known want, they’ll never know need
Their shit don’t stink and their kids won’t bleed
Their kids won’t bleed in the damn little war
And we can’t make it here anymore

The rest of the lyrics to this classic song are at the bottom of this review.

James played songs from his newer music first and then advised the crowd “I’ve saved the older stuff for later in the show” and the last half of the show contained most of his hits from his 1995 album Childish things which caused the crowd to really get into the show and James seemed to reciprocate by digging in hard and laying down some country blues that transformed into full blown rock by the shows end.

Early on it was just James, a cup of coffee and a glass of Wild Turkey. As his career has developed, so has the band. The band close to home has consisted of Lisa Mednick, accordion, Daren Hess, drums and Ronnie Johnson, harmony vocals/bass. Recent tours have included the "power trio" of McMurtry, Hess and Johnson.

James McMurty – Lead Guitar, Vocals

Daren Hess – Drums

Ronnie Johnson, harmony vocals/bass

Tim Holt, sound man extraordinaire and a great guitarist, joined the band for the second half of the show, playing killer likes on his PRS guitar.

James McMurtry (born March 18, 1962 in Fort Worth, Texas^[1]) is a Texas Rock music singer, songwriter, guitarist, bandleader and occasional actor (Daisy Miller,Lonesome Dove). With his veteran bandmates and rhythm section The Heartless Bastards (Darren Hess and Ronnie Johnson) he tours regions of the United States and, increasingly, Europe, for parts of each year, performing in intimate and mid-sized venues, especially those with dancing room for his audiences.

His father, novelist Larry McMurtry, gave him his first guitar at age seven. His mother, an English professor, taught him how to play it: "My mother taught me three chords and the rest I just stole as I went along. I learned everything by ear or by watching people."

Biography

James spent the first seven years of his boyhood in Ft. Worth^[2] but was raised mostly in Leesburg, Virginia. He attended the Woodberry Forest School, Orange, Virginia. He began performing in his teens, writing bits and pieces. He started performing his own songs at a downtown beer garden while studying English and Spanish at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

After traveling to Alaska and playing a few gigs, James returned to Texas and his father’s "little bitty ranch house crammed with 10,000 books". After a time, he left for San Antonio, where he worked as a house painter, actor, bartender, and sometimes singer, performing at writer’s nights and open mics.

In 1987, a friend in San Antonio suggested he enter the New Folk songwriter contest. He was one of six winners that year. John Mellencamp was starring in a film based on a script by James’s father, which gave James the opportunity to get a demo tape to Mellencamp.

Mellencamp subsequently served as co-producer on McMurtry’s 1989 debut album, Too Long in the Wasteland. McMurtry also appeared on the soundtrack of the film Falling from Grace, working with Mellencamp, John Prine, Joe Ely, andDwight Yoakam in a "supergroup" called Buzzin’ Cousins.

McMurtry released follow-up albums in Candyland (1992) and Where’d You Hide the Body (1995). Walk Between the Raindrops followed in 1998 and 2002 brought St. Mary of the Woods. In April 2004, McMurtry released a tour album called Live In Aught-Three.

In 2005, McMurtry released his first studio album in 3 years. Childish Things again received high critical praise, culminating in him winning the song and album of the year at the 5th Annual Americana Awards in Nashville, Tennessee. The album was perhaps McMurtry at his most political, as his working-class anthem "We Can’t Make It Here" included direct criticism of George W. Bush, the Iraq War, and Wal-Mart.

McMurtry released his follow up album to Childish Things in April 2008. Just Us Kids continued with the previous album’s political themes and included the song Cheney’s Toy, McMurtry’s most direct criticism of George W. Bush so far. Like We Can’t Make It Here from the previous album, Cheney’s Toy was made available as a free Internet download.

James McMurtry currently resides in Austin, Texas. When in Austin McMurtry and The Heartless Bastards play a midnight set at The Continental Club on Wednesday nights. He’s usually preceded by another Austin roots rock legend, Jon Dee Graham.

Lyrics "We Can’t Make it Here"

Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
Flag on the wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing, both hands free
No one’s paying much mind to him
The V.A. budget’s stretched so thin
And there’s more comin’ home from the Mideast war
We can’t make it here anymore

That big ol’ building was the textile mill
It fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We can’t make it here anymore

See all those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They’re just gonna set there till they rot
‘Cause there’s nothing to ship, nothing to pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks
Empty storefronts around the square
There’s a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You don’t come down here ‘less you’re looking to score
We can’t make it here anymore

The bar’s still open but man it’s slow
The tip jar’s light and the register’s low
The bartender don’t have much to say
The regular crowd gets thinner each day

Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage won’t pay for a roof, won’t pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far 5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one of your stores
Bet you can’t make it here anymore

High school girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromat
A woman with kids can forget all that
If she comes up pregnant what’ll she do
Forget the career, forget about school
Can she live on faith? live on hope?
High on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it’s way too late to just say no
You can’t make it here anymore

Now I’m stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
‘Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can’t make it here anymore

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I’m in
Should I hate ‘em for having our jobs today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They’ve never known want, they’ll never know need
Their shit don’t stink and their kids won’t bleed
Their kids won’t bleed in the damn little war
And we can’t make it here anymore

Will work for food
Will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
Let ‘em eat jellybeans let ‘em eat cake
Let ‘em eat sh$%, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps
If they can’t make it here anymore

And that’s how it is
That’s what we got
If the president wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper
Read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind
If you’re listening at all
Get out of that limo
Look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone
Tell us all why

In Dayton, Ohio
Or Portland, Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That’s done closed down along with the school
And the hospital and the swimming pool
Dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There’s rats in the alley
And trash in the street
Gang graffiti on a boxcar door
We can’t make it here anymore

Discography

1989 Too Long in the Wasteland
1992 Candyland

1995 Where’d You Hide the Body

1997 It Had to Happen

1998 Walk Between the Raindrops

2002 Saint Mary of the Woods

2004 Live in Aught-Three

2005Childish Things 

2007 Best of the Sugar Hill Years

2008 Just Us Kids

2009 Live in Europe